Welcome to the premiere issue of Sabretache!

I hope that you like the theme and contents of each issue. At first, there will be a potpourri of articles with no particular theme. Eventually, I want to introduce a theme for each issue on a wide variety of topics such as colonial conflicts, European conflicts and small wars.

Sabretache is designed to cover wargaming and historical re-enactment for the periods in which black powder firearms were in vogue, which is to say from 1660 to 1900. The time periods covered include the Wars of Louis XIV, War of Spanish Succession, Great Northern War, War of Austrian Succession, Seven Years War, French & Indian Wars, American Revolution and many others.

The title was selected because it symbolises the aim of the newsletter in that it contains a selection of articles of interest to wargamers, re-enactors and historians. A sabretache was satchel suspended by straps from cavalry officer's belt and used to hold paper and writing implements to create dispatches, reports, and other paperwork useful to commanders and their subordinates. In the 19^th Century, they became a decorative appendage to the officer's outfit, but were originally quite useful for carrying paperwork, maps, etc. as uniforms had become very tight fitting.

Sabretache was developed to be a webzine exclusively, which is a bit of a departure from the more familiar paper publications. There were several reasons for this decision. The main criterion was to minimise the cost of the newsletter. Since I can do all of the editorial work on my PC, it is easy to meet self-imposed deadlines and ensure a personal style. The fact that most of our target audience has computers was also an important criterion.

One of the advantages of this format is the ability to use hyperlinks so that readers can immediately access other websites. I shall eventually incorporate other features to exploit the many wonders of the Internet and e-publishing. Possibilities include video features, slide shows of photographs from events and background music. I look upon these as necessary features so that readers are encouraged to spend time in front of the computer to "read" each issue.

Now there are plenty of people that have a dedicated reading room and like all their reading material to be paper or hard copy. To them I say that it is time to modify your habits slightly and make use of the many storage devices like floppy disks and CDs to store your growing collections of magazines, journals, books and other reading material. I am sure that there are many non-wargamers in the family that may just appreciate my policy.

If I am wrong, then you can always print a copy of each issue so that you can read it where you like.

In any event, thank you for taking the time to read this issue.

One note about the editorial staff, this is the core group of the Saga Publishing and playtesting group. Terry started us all down the path and for his efforts is now the editor-in-chief. This means that he gets the blame since the buck stops at his door whether he likes it or not. Managing editor means that I am responsible for putting together each issue and conscripting writers to fill the pages. Most of the writers are drawn from the contributing editors as such they may be identified as Saga staff whether they had any input or not. In some cases, their work was used to fill in some of the white spaces. Hopefully, this state of affairs will change as more material is voluntarily submitted.